


Olympic Friend-Making

by birlcholtz (justwhatialwayswanted)



Series: Pie and Prejudice [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pride and Prejudice Fusion, Figure Skater Eric "Bitty" Bittle, Gen, shruti is mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:47:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23691829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justwhatialwayswanted/pseuds/birlcholtz
Summary: Olympic figure skater Eric Bittle has concluded, based on his orientation week, that college is weird.(Prequel to Pie and Prejudice)
Series: Pie and Prejudice [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706146
Comments: 21
Kudos: 113





	Olympic Friend-Making

College is weird. 

Eric knows that right now, what he's seeing isn't  _ really _ college. Just a campus and a few other people around. It seems like some of the sports teams are here already— at least that guy he'd met at Faber had said he was on the hockey team. But Justin's told him that most people don't get to move in until tomorrow. So right now it's just Eric, the sports teams, and everyone who moved in early for freshman orientation.

And, like he said, it's been weird.

He's been recognized more often than not, and a girl named Shruti had explained that her RA had told everyone about the Swallow. And the Swallow, which seems like some sort of college tabloid, had done an article about him, so now everyone knows.

(Shruti is sweet, though, and they stick together during the speeches and activities and events of orientation weekend. Eric consoles her about breaking up with her high school girlfriend and she tries to explain to him how rugby works. He has one number of another Samwell freshman saved in his phone. It's enough, for now.)

He'd known that he would stand out. He's a few years older than most of the freshman class, he doesn't have a lot of free time because of training, and he's mildly famous. All facts that have sat like stones in the bottom of his stomach as he wonders if this was actually a good idea. He's never been a scholar. Even once he retires from professional figure skating, he'll probably coach kids. So why, exactly, is he here?

And then his phone buzzes with another text from Justin, who's packing up his last bags, and he remembers. He's here because he barely has friends other than Justin, Alexei, Katya, and his parents— and Katya's a friend but she's also his  _ coach. _ They don't exactly hang out together in their spare time. He's here because he wants to know other people his age, and to feel a little less isolated in Massachusetts, now that Katya's moved here. She coaches a couple of other people, and Sharon and Edgar are great, they really are, but Eric has literally  _ no _ shared interests with them besides figure skating.

He wants friends. No— he  _ needs _ friends. Going pro hasn't been kind to him, not after he pretty much stopped talking to everyone from his high school the day after graduation. His mama had warned him he would get lonely, and he knew she was right, but he'd thought he would have more time to figure something out before...

Well. Before it hit him as hard as it did.

Eric shakes that off and picks up his phone before he starts thinking about last year too hard.

**Justin:** got everything packed and im driving down tmrw!!

**Justin:** it has been WAY too long dude i miss your tiny face

**Eric:** my face is absolutely normal sized you're the giant

**Justin:** not my fault all figure skaters are so goddamn SHORT

**Justin:** we wld still be a great ice dancing pair tho and i stand by that

**Eric:** hmmmm yeah if you can keep up

**Justin:** fucking rude

**Justin:** you come to my college

**Justin:** and you BETRAY me in this way

**Justin:** also i probably bench more than you weigh now so we could do some crazy ass lifts

**Eric:** i'll consider it

**Justin:** katya would say yes

**Eric:** katya would say absolutely not

**Justin:** let me have this eric bittle

**Justin:** if i got back into skating katya would probably just be glad her constant sideeye worked

Justin only lived in the States for a couple of years, just freshman and sophomore year of high school, and somehow in that time he became Eric's best friend. And... continues to be Eric's best friend, although Eric is pretty sure Justin must have plenty of friends at Samwell. He's going to be a junior, after all, and people gravitate to him.

Okay. No. He's not going down that mental path again. 

**Eric:** mm she's still bitter you quit

**Justin:** what can i say i followed the siren call of molecular biology

**Justin:** oh dude my friend denice just said shes moving in rn u should find her

**Justin:** shes working in the reslife office this year so she gets to be here early to help with the chaos of tmrw

**Justin:** shes great we took the same history ge last year and studied together

**Justin:** it was a traumatic experience and were bonded for life

**Eric:** are the history classes really that bad????

**Justin:** lol nah we were just bad at it

**Justin:** do u know how hard i actively avoid writing essays

**Eric:** even more than i do

**Justin:** exactly

**Justin:** and denice is a theater kid and 1960s us politics are not her jam

**Justin:** ok she said yes come find her shes in lakeside 217, she could use some help moving her bed but she also has cookies and is willing to share

And, well. Eric isn't going to say no to that type of invitation.

Denice's room has a lot of boxes in it and a bed in the corner, and Denice herself is short and wearing a red cardigan over her shirt and skirt even though it's August. (The cardigan matches her headband.) She grins at Eric, shakes his hand, and tells him she requested that Justin text him specifically because she wants dirt on Justin as an awkward teenager. Eric likes her immediately.

"Unfortunately, I'm not sure he was ever awkward," he confesses. "You know, I knew him literally in the middle of puberty? And he was still the most gorgeous person in our grade. He  _ was _ a nerd, though."

"Oh,  _ excellent. _ What was baby nerd Justin like?"

"An absolute terror when anything biology or figure skating-related came up. We would hang out at each other's houses sometimes and the first time he was over at my house my mama asked him what his favorite school subject was and I learned more about the endocrine system that day than I ever learned in bio classes."

He leaves Denice's room a few hours later with her number in his phone and a promise to meet up in half an hour to go to dinner, and Eric feels like he can breathe a little easier. He won't be alone while he's here. And his phone buzzes with a text from Justin asking if he met Denice and how it went, and he replies with a smile on his face.

**Author's Note:**

> i felt bad about making y'all wait for me to post Pie and Prejudice forever, so this is a bonus thing/sneak peek! if you want to speculate about who you think is going to be who, by all means do so in the comments section, i'd love to hear where you think it's going! <3
> 
> love, birl


End file.
